Australian Energy Market Operator

AEMO operates Australia's National Electricity Market (NEM), the interconnected power system in Australia’s eastern and south-eastern seaboard, and the Wholesale Electricity Market (WEM) and power system in Western Australia.

AEMO operates gas retail markets in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, and Western Australia. AEMO also operates wholesale gas markets in south-eastern Australia, those being the Declared Wholesale Gas Market in Victoria (DWGM), the Short Term Trading Market in Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney (STTM), and the Gas Supply Hub (GSH), whose trading locations are based at Wallumbilla in Queensland, and Moomba in South Australia. AEMO also operates the Natural Gas Services Bulletin Board (GBB), and is system operator of the Victorian Gas Declared Transmission System. AEMO is also responsible for Gas Services Information functions in Western Australia.

Emerging Generation and Energy Storage – Grid Scale

AEMO is seeking stakeholder engagement to help design improvements to the regulatory arrangements for how grid-scale Emerging Generation and Energy Storage (EGES) registers and participates in the National Electricity Market (NEM).

AEMO has published a paper with potential NEM improvements (see key documents, below) and will be hosting stakeholder sessions in Melbourne and Brisbane in November 2018 to discuss and obtain feedback on the key topics presented in this paper. These sessions are designed for current participants and future proponents who intend to engage in the NEM. Following these sessions and the receipt of written feedback, AEMO will develop a work program, which would cover any National Electricity Rules (NER), procedures, registration applications, and AEMO IT system changes.

Emerging Generation and Energy Storage – Grid Scale

The objective of EGES initiative is to work with stakeholders to investigate how the NEM’s arrangements (including NER, procedures, guidelines and AEMO’s IT systems) can be enhanced to better integrate grid-scale energy storage and other resources into the NEM.

This work seeks to identify the challenges and opportunities facing proponents of new generation and load business models and the impact on Market Participants, including improving the NEM’s arrangements to facilitate better integration of grid-scale energy storage and ‘hybrid’ models.

AEMO is seeing more registration and connection enquiries involving grid-scale combinations involving generation, energy storage (typically batteries) and load. These ‘newer’ business models challenge the existing NEM arrangements. As the NEM develops, AEMO expects that energy storage and ‘new’ business models will continue to grow. AEMO considers this work a priority because we anticipate continued growth in the connection and registration of energy storage technologies to support variable or renewable generation and, more broadly, the national grid.

Stakeholder Engagement

EGES Stakeholder Paper

The EGES stakeholder paper (see key documents, below) is based on the early investigations, conducted with stakeholders in late 2017 and through 2018, identifying the challenges facing proponents and the emerging scenarios for new technologies and business models. It explores the following topics, including context, issue identification, options, AEMO’s assessment and stakeholder questions for each area:

Defining Energy Storage

Participation models to integrate Energy Storage Systems (ESS)

Integrating energy storage into the NER Recovery mechanisms

Application of performance standards to a generating system or load in an exempt network

Separation of operational and financial responsibility

Logical metering arrangements

Providing NEM information to project developers

Stakeholder Sessions

AEMO has scheduled two stakeholder engagement sessions to discuss the issues and opportunities identified within the EGES Stakeholder Paper (see key documents, below) and seek feedback from stakeholders to prioritise and develop a future work program. These sessions are open to all interested parties with regulatory and technical expertise in this area.

If you would like to attend one of the stakeholder sessions, please register via the link below by COB Friday 9 November 2018.

Registrations are now closed, however written feedback from stakeholders can be sent to eges@aemo.com.au by Tuesday 4 December 2018.